a weekend spent well- day 2

Day 2 started with a presentation on “Cultural Issues Faced while Adopting Agile”. It was a nice case presentation that demonstrated how the transition from waterfall to Agile happened for a product. Discussion on “issues” was there , but “culture” part was not present. We did not come to know how the culture was an obstacle for that specific Agile implementation.

Now was the time again when I had to choose among the sessions. Choice this time was “Writing user Stories Effectively”, because of the challenges our group faces in this area back in the office. The speaker explained basic concepts for the stories like INVEST and the idea behind them. A good discussion for the starters.

The next presentation was history of sorts. In Hedwig’s words, “the hell good of a presentation”. How does this man, Ajay Danait, gets time to read so much useful software engineering literature? His great presentation (read convincing; he convinced us that if Einstein had brain of 100 people, we can create an Einstein by having a Group of 100, the only thing needed is proper mentor ship) skills were icing on the cake. It was an eye opener for the people who think only following the Agile practices is the key to success. What is needed is much more than that! “Extrinsic vs Intrinsic motivation” was interesting in the sense that we all know these terms, but need a presentation like this to realize actual benefits of being truly self motivated. “Shu-Ha-Ri” pattern was again beautifully presented, after Serge told about it on the first day.You may have a look at this presentation here.

“How to go Agile in distributed environment” was the next one by Imran and Himanshu. The part appreciated most was the tools of choice when working in a distributed environment. I made note of a few tools, and am looking forward to trying them.

Balloooons at the XP Game

Now let’s have some fun, I thought when the schedule hinted I can now go to the “XP Game” organized in another hall. Here 2 teams were formed and we were presented with the backlog. The presenters played role of POs for the teams. There were some useful day-to-day best practices to learn from this session. The key of them all was communication: within the team members and with your PO. It was fun doing activities like inflating balloons and folding paper hats.

Last but not the least, the lady hosting the main hall was a good host. We witnessed her thoughtfulness when she commented about the apprehensions in pair programming. Very true from a developer’s perspective in a development team.

Thus folded a very useful and satisfactory event. To me, the content and experience were exceeding the expectations.